Time for a Climb
June 12, 2019 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions
Some coworkers of mine like to rock climb and they asked me if I knew any good places to do so, so I immediately thought of Hewe’s Hill in Swanzey. People have climbed there for many years I’ve heard, but until this day I had never seen anyone doing so. To get to the trailhead you have to cross this meadow. It was about 70 degrees F. with wall to wall sunshine; not great for photography but perfect for climbing, I was told.
Meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis) grew at the edge of the meadow. It’s an old fashioned garden favorite that has much larger flowers than our other native wood anemone. Though it seems to spread out in a garden it’s easy to control. It’s also called crowfoot because of the foliage and it is also known as Canada anemone. Native Americans used this plant medicinally and its root and leaves were one of the most highly regarded medicines of the Omaha and Ponca tribes. It was used as an eye wash, an antiseptic, and to treat headaches and dizziness. The root was chewed to clear the throat so a person could sing better.
Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) also grew in the meadow and some of them were very blue indeed. I always enjoy seeing these cheery little flowers.
At one point a tree had fallen across the trail. I was surprised because you don’t usually see this here. The hill is privately owned and well maintained. But it must be a lot of work; I saw two other fallen trees that had been cut out of the trail with an axe.
Delicate hay scented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula) grew on the shaded sides of the trail. This fern gets its name from the way that it smells like fresh mown hay when you brush against it. The Native American Cherokee tribe used this fern medicinally to treat chills.
Raspberries (Rubus idaeus) bloomed along the sunnier sides of the trail. This plant has just started blooming but it looks like it will be a great year for them, and blueberries too.
Do you look at roots when you hike a trail? I do and I see many that so many feet have touched they look as if they’ve been sanded and polished. They can be very beautiful things, especially the roots of eastern hemlock like those seen here.
The bright harsh sunlight made photography a challenge, especially with a new camera that I don’t fully know (or like) yet, but this is a relatively accurate view of what the forest looked like from the inside.
Big, teardrop shaped leaves told me that Indian cucumber root (Medeola virginiana) grew here. In fact they grew in large numbers. Botanically speaking a whorl is an “arrangement of sepals, petals, leaves, stipules or branches that radiate from a single point and surround or wrap around the stem,” and nothing illustrates this better than Indian cucumber root. Its leaves wrap around the stem arranged in a single flat plane, so if you saw them from the side theoretically you would see an edge, much like looking at the edge of a dinner plate. If any leaf or leaves in the arrangement are above or below others it’s not a true whorl.
Native Americans used this plant as food because like its common name implies, its small root looks and tastes a lot like a mini cucumber. It’s easy to identify because of its tiers of whorled leaves and unusual flowers. It likes to grow under trees in dappled light, probably getting no more than an hour or two of direct sunlight each day. The flowers of Indian cucumber root have 6 yellowish green tepals, 6 reddish stamens topped by greenish anthers, and 3 reddish purple to brown styles. These large styles are sometimes bright red- brown but I think they darken as they age. These appeared to be kind of orangey. Each flower will become a shiny, inedible dark purplish black berry.
I had warned my co-climbers that it would be a slow climb, what with me having to take photos of every living thing and stopping to catch my breath frequently, but we made it to Tippin Rock in good time. I had a good chance to catch my breath while my friends tried to tip the glacial erratic. They each took a turn while I watched, and each of them had the big 40 ton behemoth rocking like a baby cradle. It’s a very subtle movement and you have to watch the edge of the boulder against the background to see it. So far everyone I know who has made something this big move so easily has been amazed. When you think about all that had to happen for a perfectly balanced boulder to be sitting on the bedrock of this summit it boggles the mind.
After the rock there are the views and they weren’t bad on this day. Some decorative puffy white clouds would have made the scene a little more photogenic but you can’t have everything.
For years I’ve heard that New Hampshire has 4.8 million acres of forested land but it’s hard to wrap your head around a number like that until you’ve see something like this. Seemingly unbroken forest stretches to infinity. Or at least to the horizon.
I often wonder, when I’m in places like this, what I would have done in the 1700s if I had looked out over something like this, carrying only a gun and an axe. Would I have had the strength and courage to go on into the unknown or would I have turned back to relative safety? Of course it’s an impossible question to answer, but that’s the way wilderness makes you think. Back then there were bears, wolves, and very unhappy natives down there.
The friends I was with were all about hanging off ropes after crawling over the cliff edge but I was not. I had the heebie jeebies just looking at the edge shown in this photo from 10 feet back, so since I don’t have the stomach for such things I left them to their fun (?) and headed back down the hill. Now that they know where the spot is they can come and climb anytime they like. I made sure that they knew, and I think others who might be reading this and thinking about coming here should know; this is private land and permission has graciously been granted by the owners to the public for recreational use. Nothing but your footprints should be left behind when you leave.
Of course I couldn’t leave without saying hello to my little friends the toadstool lichens (Lasallia papulosa.) They’re very rare down below in my experience but up here they’re plentiful and that’s good because it makes me climb up to see them. Since I’ve met climbers in their 80s on these hills and haven’t been able to keep up with them I’m assuming that climbing must be good for you. In any event some of the lichens were dry, as shown by their ashy gray state. They are also crisp like a potato chip at this stage.
Some lichens found a spot near seeping groundwater on the cliffs and wore their happy pea green color. In this state they’re soft and rubbery and feel like your earlobe. They aren’t big; this one was about an inch across.
Some lichens were on the fence, part green and part gray, but they dry out quickly. I’ve seen them ashy and crisp two days after a pouring rain. I like their warty look, which always reminds me of distant solar systems. They’re another one of those bits of nature that can take me out of myself for a while.
I saw a blister, which I took to be some type of gall, on a blueberry leaf. It caught my attention because blueberries don’t seem to be attacked by many pests or diseases other than witch’s broom.
A dead branch looked purple in the forest but my color finding software sees blue. Either way, you don’t expect to find blue or purple on fallen branches. I have no way of knowing what caused the strange color but I would guess spalting. Spalting is any discoloration of wood caused by fungal hyphae growing along the softer sapwood. Though spalting usually happens on dead wood it can sometimes be found on live trees, which isn’t good for the tree. It can be very beautiful and spalted wood is highly prized by woodworkers.
A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him, and leaving something of himself upon it. ~Martin Conway
Thanks for coming by.
Posted in Lichens, Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Things I've Seen | Tagged Blueberry, Bluets, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Hay Scented Fern, Hewe's Hill Swanzey NH, Hill Climbing in New Hampshire, Indian Cucumber Root, Keene, Meadow Anemone, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, Raspberry, Rock Climbing, Summer Wildflowers, Swanzey New Hampshire, Tippin Rock, Toadskin Lichens | 29 Comments
I had never heard of cucumber root. There are really an amazing number of edible wild plants. Not surprising, I guess, since all our crops have wild ancestors. I wonder if Hay Scented Fern would do well in the garden.
There are lots of edible plants but unfortunately there are also lots of poisonous ones, so you have to know what you’re doing out there if you want to forage.
Hay scentedf fern will do well in a garden but once it becomes established you’ll never be rid of it,
I love the Meadow anemone! We don’t have them here and they are so pretty. I also like the roots; something I do see here and they are so interesting.
Thanks Montucky! Meadow anemone can be weedy in a garden but I’ve always liked them. The flowers are about as big as a quarter and really put on a show.
I’m glad someone else enjoys tree roots!
Hi Allen,
This post reminds me… Back when we first made the rock move, you predicted that I’d be world famous. I keep thinking when I’m out at the grocery store, someone will surely come up and say “Hey, I saw you pushing on that rock back in New Hampshire”. I even started wearing that same old green shirt when I go out shopping, to make it easier to recognize me. But so far, not a one has seen fit to speak up.
That might be, but your photo has still been seen all over the world. Next time you go shopping in Argentina or Lithuania things might be different. You might get hugs from everyone.
I’ll be sure to add those destinations to my bucket list, Cuz, you know… I’ll do just about anything for a hug. Timbuktu maybe?
I don’t know if I’ve had any readers from Timbuktu proper but I’ve had a few from Mali, so if you go there they’ll probably recognize you.
Once again with too much time on my hands, I Googled Timbuktu just to see where in the world it is (as one does). As you rightly point out, “the” Timbuktu is in Mali, in Africa. But it turns out that there is a Timbuctoo right here in Northern California, just a few hours north of where I call home. Never knew that until now.
Me niether!
I would find it very claustrophobic to live surrounded by trees. I am not happy if I can’t see a hill.
You wouldn’t be very happy here then unless you lived on the seacoast. We have many trees but since I grew up with them they don’t bother me. I do love to see a treeless hill though!
You would not have turned back. I’m positive. 🙂
Thank you Judy. Curiosity might have kept me moving through the wilderness but courage certainly wouldn’t have had anything to do with it.
I would have loved to learn about plants and nature from Native Americans!
I don’t think I’d ever willingly dangle on a rope off the side of a cliff! My arms have never been strong and I could never climb ropes at school. I’m not too bad at coping with heights as long as my feet are planted well on firm ground. I would much rather walk through the woods and admire the view from a safe place, as you do.
The meadow anemone and the bluets are very attractive and so must be the hay scented fern.
Thank you Clare. I work with a lot of people who spend their time on zip lines and climbing towers so it’s all old hat to them, but you’ll never find me on a rope!
I’d rather just walk through the woods too.
Hay scented ferns can be a pain if you get them in the garden but I like them in the woods because they sometimes form huge colonies.
Yes, some types of fern (like bracken) are difficult to control.
I think you really need a seperate part of the yard for them so they don’t mix in with other plants.
I can see that that would be the best way.
I like your imagining of European settlers facing the task of clearing the land so that they could make a home. Mostly, from 2019, we don’t view them sympathetically, but your ponderings gave me a different perspective. I do have a question: Was it very buggy? In central Maine, the mosquitoes have been wicked fierce. Never seen them this bad, and we have lived in the woods for 35 years.
I can only speak for my own yard, Laurie, but we’re being swarmed by those small black flies. Some days, there just isn’t enough bug spray to keep them away.
Lots of mosquitoes here!
Here, blackflies not so bad. But the mosquitoes and ticks are dreadful.
Same here!
Thank you Laurie. I don’t agree at all with what we did to Native Americans but I do think it took some very brave people to do it.
Black flies weren’t that bad this year but yes, mosquitoes are everywhere, and so are ticks. “Deep Woods Off” is the only thing that keeps them off me.
It’s funny how two things can be true at the same time. As for blackflies, ticks, and mosquitoes…same situation here.
True.
Sorry we have the same insects plaguing us!
‘Forest Bathing’ is the new healthy promise. Residents of New Hampshire must find it easy to do. Apparently the trees give off something that is good for ones health!
I think most people find it easier to relax in a forest and that lowers their stress level.
I’ve been in the woods pretty much my entire life so I don’t have much to compare it too but I do think that it is beneficial, especially for people who live in cities.